"Aha! we turn the conversation!" cried Aunt Clo, with an air of greater shrewdness than was altogether warranted by her penetration of Philip's exceedingly obvious manœuvre.
"Ce bon Nicholas! He will widen the little one's views. You have never taught her to seek for the great things of life, Philip. Perhaps as well! I myself have been storm-tossed and passion-wrecked, and now that the evening has come, I look back upon the day of tempest with a great calm. But all are not fit."
Miss Stellenthorpe shook her head repeatedly, and fixed her gaze upon vacancy.
Philip making no attempt to break the retrospective reverie of his sister, she roused herself from it briskly, with her characteristic laugh, her head flung back.
"But I scarcely know how I came to speak of myself. That is not worthy of either of us. Tell me, my Philip, how goes life with you?"
"I am very well, Clo."
"The body, yes!" cried Aunt Clo with impatient scorn. "But the spirit, the imperishable, the eternal?"
"You know that life is over for me," said Philip, gently and with perfect conviction.
"No!" said Miss Stellenthorpe in a voice like a trumpet-call. And with a still greater effect of emphasis she substituted, "Nay!" a moment later.
"Nay! Can life ever be over while the sun shines, the wind blows, the open road lies before you? Come, my Philip, this is not well!"